


close your eyes and count to ten

by fuzzy_paint



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-03
Updated: 2012-11-03
Packaged: 2017-11-17 17:03:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzy_paint/pseuds/fuzzy_paint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post battle, Jane and Thor make sure the other still lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	close your eyes and count to ten

Thor has strength enough to crack the walls, to rend the stone and mortar with his hands. It’s something that Jane’s thought about, once or twice (often), measuring Thor’s strength against that of a mortal man. Against that of Captain Rogers or even against Tony’s suit. She’s thought about how to account for the variables, to consider Thor’s training and Steve’s instincts and JARVIS’s advanced algorithms, and how she might quantify the final outcome based on those variables.

She’s considered it, but now it’s nothing more than a stray thought that comes and goes quickly. She doesn’t need to know how strong he is, just that even in his insistence and his firm hands, Thor does not push too hard that he might hurt. Even now, even in his hunger, he treats her with care. 

There is the wall, then her, then Thor, holding her back against cool stones. There is the hallway behind them, the torn tapestries offering some semblance of privacy from the shocked silence of a city that does not quite know what to do with themselves, let alone with the gouges in the walls, the broken pillars on the floor, or the statuary broken into pieces. There are the missing chunks in all three: the holes in the floor, the missing arms, faces, limbs of the immortalized icons of long dead heroes of Asgard and a whole third of the palace walls that are now simply gone. 

There is the worried speculation of the few people that have quickly gathered their wits about them, muttering as they hurry past without stopping to notice Jane and Thor in their alcove, or the gaping empty spaces, here, there, everywhere. 

Jane sees them. She sees the missing walls, the fissures in the floor, all of it. 

But there are Jane’s troubled thoughts; there is everything that threatens to tear her apart. The fear, the panic, the resolve that sparked quickly and still burns. It will soon demand payment. There is everything Jane Foster does not want to think about. 

So she doesn’t. 

Because here is Thor, brilliant, beautiful and strong. He has mud on his face and blood on his armor, his, theirs, someone’s. Here is Thor, warm and insistent with his body against hers, his hands on her waist, and his mouth on her skin. 

Here is Jane, lost to what she feels, what she tastes, the simple mundane senses anchoring her to here and now. Here is Jane, seeking solace, burdened with the startling lure of power she never sought to wield. 

Thor grips her thighs and hoists her up, holding her against the wall in the tiny alcove. His body is strong. It is steady. His muscles do not tremble or shake though Jane half suspects they should. He must feel it, the weariness and the weakness. He is not immortal; this she knows. She’s heard people – friends, colleagues, strangers – speculate about his tolerance for punishment, how far a villain would have to go-

That is one question Jane does not want to hypothesize. 

She kisses his temple, licks at it, tasting sweat both old and new. She feels him hard between her legs, proof that he still lives. That he survived. Proof that when that… that _thing_ sunk its teeth into him, it did not take from him despite what her eyes insist to be true. He is here, solid, his physicality present in the broadness of his shoulders and the urgency in his hips pressing against hers. But it does not account for the things she cannot hold in her hands, the true measure of Thor far deeper than what she can taste, feel, touch and see. 

Is any of that lost? Is it all still there? Jane wants to search him inch by inch until she knows he is safe. 

His fingers catch against the collar of her dress, an elaborate thing gilt in gold thread and woven more for show than actual comfort or use. Jane hears the fabric tear, and then she feels the cool air on her exposed shoulder. Thor’s hand is warm as he seeks, beard rough as he mouths at her neck, licking up the column of it as she arches into him. Thor curves his palm over her breast, feeling for the flush of her skin and perhaps seeking the beat of her heart. Perhaps seeking his own assurances just as she seeks hers. 

She’s thinking too much. Her brain won’t turn off, and she can’t catch her breath. She hasn’t been able to for hours, and she can’t now. Not here, not surrounded by the traces of the fallen on the walls, on the floors. Not when she’s trying to rationalize, to categorize, to do _anything_ with the memories of creatures with no name, with a hunger beyond description. 

Jane’s fingers start grasping at him. She knows the clasps of his armor, knows the secrets and the easiest ways in. She helped put it on only this morning, as she does most mornings, lingering over the arm braces as they stood only feet from his bed, a slight smile on her mouth as he looked at her. Just as he always looks at her, with all the promises unspoken between them and only a bare hint of all he would give her if she only asked. 

It’s a reminder of why Odin might be so wary of her now, measuring his words before speaking in the shattered remains of his hall, watching the way Thor hovered just as much as he watched her every look, her every twitch. Thor, his son. The prince of Asgard and the future king of Yggdrasil. The Thunderer and the Avenger and the self-appointed protector of Midgard. 

Her fingers still even as his cloak falls to the ground, bright red covering the rubble and the patterns of dried blood. She hesitates at the unnatural shapes carved over his shoulder where the metal is dented, buckled, some of the edges sharp from being torn. Her lust clears enough for her to think, to wonder. None of Asgard know how to treat her now, whether in deference or in scorn, in Loki’s startled and suspicious awe or in Odin’s cautious gratitude.

Will they give her a title now? One that defines her in their society, one unique to her and beyond the shallow and condescending implications of the mortal consort, the Midgardian that presumed to claim the heart of their prince and then dared to keep it? One beyond the seeker of knowledge, a title most of Asgard holds in little regard? Something akin to Loki’s Silvertongue, similar to Sif’s Goddess of War or twin to Heimdall’s Guardian of Worlds? 

Jane shudders, and Thor’s mouth stills, hot against her jaw. He touches his nose against her cheek, his breathing harsh enough to match her own. He does not speak, only takes his hand from her breast and pushes back the hair that’s escaped the traditional Asgardian hairstyle and the circlet on her brow. Jane says nothing, eyes closed, but she tries to hitch her legs higher over his hip. 

She cannot look beyond him. She does not want to look beyond him, but Thor carries the same memories she does, scars of the mind brought on by beings so far removed from either of them that they hadn’t managed to leak into the vaguest references in either of their myths and legends. They’d been hungry enough to feast on all the magic of Odin’s combined forces of sorcery and might, to turn to Loki’s Jotnar magic when that wasn’t enough, and then to gorge on Jane’s science, devouring the whole of her research and instrumentation. 

Hungry, hungry, hungry, eating away at everything they touched. She feels the ramifications in a new way, sees the splinter-work in the universe that others cannot. Perhaps Loki might, with what he’s seen of both the universe outside of Yggdrasil and his knowledge of the inner workings of the Bifrost, but she sees it. She sees it eating away at the cracks in the structure of the palace, in the whole of the realm, in the universe. It is only a shadow of what is to come, always hungry, devouring even when it has no mouth, no stomach, no body at all. 

Worst of all, she sees the traces of it in Thor. 

His mouth finds hers; Jane tilts her head back, welcoming it, opening her mouth as he banishes most of the thoughts outside of them and outside of this. He rucks up the heavy skirt of her dress, baring her legs, but it’s Jane that reaches between them. Her fingers get lost in the fabric, yards and yards of it, and tangle in the workings of his pants. She starts to tug, impatient and annoyed when the lacings refuse to cooperate. It gets her a rumble from Thor that’s not really laughter, not at all, one that matches the sound from her when the ties still refuse to give. It reveals her nerves, the distress that lurks under the veneer of both their lust.

But Jane is clever and above that, Jane is determined. The complexity of his armor is no match for her. She frays the ties and tears the bindings, pulling open the front flaps enough that she can reach in and find skin. Thor flinches; her hands are cold, but he is hard and he is ready. 

After today, it is no big thing to push his pants down and to take Thor inside her when they are in an alcove just outside the throne room, shielded only by torn tapestries and the bulk of Thor’s body. Though they are far enough away from the empty guard posts at the huge metal doors, they are too near the hallway, traffic heavy even in the aftermath, to truly avoid being seen. 

Jane can’t find the energy to care, clutching at Thor, one hand at the nape of his neck, the other holding tight to his shoulder where there are no marks from claws and teeth. There is too much metal and too much of the strange leather-like fabric of Asgardian battle-wear to reach much skin, but later, she’ll peel back the layers and soothe his bruises. She’ll coat the cuts and cover the deeper wounds with the dust of healing stones. She’ll ease the ache of his muscles with her hands, using all of her strength to work the knots out.

Later she’ll push him down into the furs of his bed, hold him there with her hips over his and her hands on his chest, ride him until her legs shake and she can’t possibly go on. But she will, bidding him to stay put with her body and her words. He’ll do it, too, let her take what they both need and give what’s necessary to pull his strength back. 

Later. 

Now she lets Thor prop her against the wall and spread her legs wide to accommodate the breadth of his hips. The fabric of her dress pools between them, more of a hindrance than anything. She wants… she wants to be closer, to be flush against all of him, skin to skin, but Asgardian clothing and armor are not built for quick and dirty hook-ups in near public settings. As she’s learned. 

As she moves against him, she notices her missing shoe, lost either in the middle of the crater that was once Odin’s hall or drifting in space, somewhere much, much further away. If so, she’ll probably never find it. She can’t see how: there’s no data to run calculations on. There’s no instrumentation that would’ve collected it, nothing left of it but tangled wires and torn metal, scars gorged by the teeth and gaping maws of an army that belayed her entire understanding of biology. Of logical sense. 

Jane pulls herself closer to him, shivering. His armor is cold, but his hands are warm under her thighs, his mouth hot against hers. 

He is warm, and Jane seeks to share that heat with him. Though her skin is flushed and sweat covers her body, she feels chilled to her bones. With Thor inside her, it starts to abate, kindled by the friction as they move against each other. Jane grips his hair, holds his mouth to hers, and touches her tongue to his, but goose bumps rise up over her arms and over her legs. 

Despite her chill, there and here disappear. For a few perfect, blissful moments, Jane stops thinking. 

After, when the euphoria starts to fade, wearing away the rough edges pretending at protecting her, protecting him, Thor cradles her as if she might break. He holds her with all of his strength and some left over, like he might share it with her if he could. He would give it if she asked, unless he truly had none to give. She doesn’t know if those things took more than they realize, if more fell through the gap in space than just what can be seen. She does not need to question if they left anything behind. That is not what concerns her.

She built an Einstein Rosen bridge with the equivalent of chewing gum and tinfoil, ripped open a hole right in the middle of Odin’s hall by the sheer force of her knowledge, her determination and the beginnings of how she’s coming to see the universe. She knows exactly what she did, and how she did it, just as she knows that it was truly beyond the reach of her instruments. Of her science. 

Her Bridge took more than can be seen by the others, a price for her desperate actions. There are holes in the floor that people walk over without seeing and gaps in the walls. There are statues that have broken apart, but still stand, a strange double-vision that twists her stomach into knots. 

Jane grips the straps of his armor, pulling herself closer to him. Thor curls around her, and still, they have no words. He holds her. Silently, as the rest of the city starts to find its voice, wailing and lamenting in the aftermath, he pledges his protection. His promise to keep her safe. 

It might not be enough. Not for her. She can see how Yggdrasil's rage cries for equilibrium. The universe will demand a due, payment for the laws she's broken today, compensation for what Jane's taken. She can feel it reaching through the cracks that are even now expanding, seeking more now that they've found purchase. 

With all her strength, she will not let it take Thor.


End file.
